


if i could i would let you see through me

by zenstrike



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Storytelling, Fairy Tale Elements, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Loss of Innocence, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Present Tense, Recovery, Romance, and just a little teeny bit of a reincarnation au implied, blending of past and present, emotional tension lmao, just slightly left of canon divergent hahaha, the ideal vs the actual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: In the sunny days of the Officers' Academy, Ashe and the Prince fall in love.In the years after, Ashe and Dimitri learn to love each other.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert & Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Ashe Big Bang





	if i could i would let you see through me

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my entry to the Ashe Big Bang! i'm a bit late and am going to need a couple of more days to get the other two parts up. i appreciate your patience and i hope you enjoy this monster of a fic all the same!
> 
> i had the incredible privilege of being paired with @chestkeys, whose art inspired me every step of the way. they were incredibly patient and this fic only really exists because of their vibrant dimiashe energy. you can see their amazing piece [here](https://twitter.com/chestkeys/status/1358779358450569220).
> 
> some content warnings: 
> 
> there is some post-ts implied sexual content. it's super vague but i'll note it anyways at the beginning of part three.
> 
> this fic deals both directly and indirectly with the burden of mental wellness on people who carry and confront trauma. there will be mentions of psychosis, depression, flashbacks, and intense grief. a lot of the explicit stuff is what ashe sees or doesn't see in dimitri's suffering, but implicit throughout the fic and its narration is ashe's own suffering and healing and how that ties into how he views dimitri. all this is the reason for the M-rating.
> 
> this fic does not deal directly with combat itself, but the traumatic absurdity of war and violence is prevalent throughout the fic. sometimes ashe deals with it directly, sometimes he finds ways and reasons to sidestep it. often times he talks and thinks about his trauma and grief as physical ailments or intrusions in his body (usually like something he's swallowed or that's under his skin)
> 
> in regards to violence itself: warnings for mentions of blood, mild gore, and some internalized psychosis as body horror. 
> 
> and also a more tongue-in-cheek warning: with all that mentioned, this fic is incredibly sappy. like. really ooey gooey.

Ashe learns to read by sitting tucked against his brother’s side. He traces the shape of the words as Christophe reads them, relishing in the way those shapes come to life in the lifts and drops of Christophe’s voice. Christophe loves his flourishes, his grim and noisy affectations, his infectious delight at an exciting turn in a story. Ashe, in turn, loves this energy. He likes the hum of Christophe’s laughter and the way Christophe tickles him when things get particularly tense. But more than all this, more than anything, Ashe loves the way the paper feels under his hands and loves the imagined feel of the ink pressing back up against his fingers. Words find flight in Christophe’s voice but their meaning is there, silent and inviting, on the page. Words, dancing in the right order, building romance and adventure out of sentences.

Christophe is impatient with beginnings. He skips words. He skips pages and paragraphs and makes up summaries. For a time, this works on Ashe. But soon the words carry new meaning, new signification. Soon he can read. Stories come to life in front of his eyes before his ears. So he scolds and laughs at Christophe’s grumbling.

“I want to get to the good stuff,” Christophe groans.

But the beginning, Ashe thinks, sets a tone.

When Christophe is gone, Ashe takes over this brotherly duty. There’s an ache to it. He still touches the pages as he reads, his brother and sister dozing at his shoulders—

Yes. The beginning sets a tone.

***

Ashe is one of the first to arrive at the Monastery, so early in his eagerness that the staff and teachers are surprised to see him. He ducks out of their way whenever he remembers to, his head bowed to hide the smile that haunts his lips. He feels that he has come to somewhere perfect.

It’s clearest in the Cathedral, which becomes his favourite haunt in those early days. He can fade away into the background, there; become one of many worshippers come to pray to the goddess. He takes to hiding in a back pew, hands on his knees as he watches people come and go, watches light filter in through the stained glass. Twice, he sees the Archbishop herself and he draws in on himself, hiding his pleased grin behind a hand.

It’s here that he first meets Mercedes. He catches her at prayer, or she catches him--the details are fuddled in the remembering, and it doesn’t matter except that she greets him with a smile and he shakes her hand with authority and she leads him through a quiet prayer in one of the front pews, her hands clasped and her smile never fading. It’s here, too, that he first meets Flayn, though he doesn’t recognize her and doesn’t learn her name until much later. She cheerfully talks him through some tall tales about the statues of the saints and then disappears around a corner, not to be seen again until dinner two days later. And it’s here, too, that Ashe first catches sight of the Prince.

It’s a word that carries too much:  _ prince _ . He seems to step out of a fairy tale and a history book at once. It must be quite a weight, Ashe thinks; all that grand history, all the associated duty, all the legends. Ashe thinks he sees a little of Loog, already, in the way the Prince carries himself: stalwart and tall; handsome and young; sure-footed and strong. He looks like he belongs in the Cathedral in a way that nobody else can or could. Divine right, Ashe thinks as he studies the Prince’s profile.

He isn’t Dimitri yet, not to Ashe. For a moment, he isn’t anything but another beautiful person studying the Cathedral, another future classmate waiting to be met. He seems young, but straight-backed and with a ghost of a smile playing at his lips. He has his hands tucked behind his back and Ashe watches as he tilts his head back to peer up at the light filtering through the Cathedral, the dusty sun beams that leave trails of light over Ashe’s eyelids when he blinks.

He lowers his chin. He looks around the Cathedral slowly. At his sides, his fingers twitch and Ashe is momentarily entranced by the movement: minute, simple, human. He’s already in uniform, though there’s something different about his.

A classmate, Ashe thinks and shifts in his spot on the pew. He drums his fingers against the wood.

He looks Ashe’s way then and it startles Ashe. He straightens, lips parting. And then, nervous, he raises a hand and waves, his mouth twitching into a crooked, shy smile. Classmate, he thinks. Classmate—

The blue of his cape dances, shining and bright and already familiar, when the Prince waves back. His smile is dazzlingly bright.

Sun beams that leave trails of light over Ashe’s eyelids when he blinks.

Yes, it’s a word that carries much:  _ prince _ . And it strikes Ashe like a warm pain between his eyes. He closes his mouth, his teeth clicking uncomfortably against each other, and with a gasp somewhere between a self-admonishment and an inappropriate curse, he dives from the pew and runs from the Cathedral.

The Prince--Dimitri--watches him go, hand still raised.

***

Ashe manages not to make a complete fool of himself when they meet, properly, later. He bows, and then he shakes the Prince’s hand, and he says his name clearly and confidently (though his voice shakes, just a little, and though his smile twitches when Dimitri’s gaze meets his). Much of the incoming Blue Lions class seems flustered to meet him and Dimitri, in turn, seems quietly nervous as he settles into his place as class Leader and as he carries a name that each of them recognize.

They’re a strange group, Ashe thinks as they settle into comfortable spots around the classroom that will soon feel like home. He looks around the room and makes a silent inventory of the exceptional students he now sits among. The nobles, who gather together and spread their familiarity like a blanket over the nervous energy of the classroom; the commoners, who pull Ashe into their ranks and lets him settle among them.

Mercedes, he knows, and adores, though he sometimes finds her warm faith difficult to keep up with. Annette sits at her side and they have a strange, dazzling way of passing half-finished sentences between them like they can have a conversation in smiles more than words. Annette is quick to latch on to Ashe, hooking their arms together and detailing conspiratorial plans for her studies. In those early days, he stays close to both of them and they, in turn, stay close to him.

The Professor comes later, comes to stand at the head of the classroom with their back straight and their eyes shining if tired. Ashe struggles, at first, with how to refer to them. How to recognize them for what they are: the authority in the room; a dangerous mercenary with a flat affect and a tendency to look at something none of the rest of them can see. But Byleth Eisner is ultimately easy to trust, and gentle when they adjust Ashe’s grip in practical lessons, and gentler still when they call Ashe’s attention to the front of the class when his focus wanders.

And his focus wanders more than he’ll admit to.

***

“He’s not quite what I expected,” Annette says, two days into the Professor’s tenure. They’re eating lunch together, Ashe squished a little shamefully between her and Mercedes.

Mercedes, on Ashe’s other side, hums. “Yes, but so sweet.”

“I guess,” Annette continues thoughtfully. “I guess I thought he’d be--I don’t know. Hm.”

“More princely?”

“Maybe?”

Ashe pauses partway through tearing into a bread roll. He lifts his head with a small frown and peers down the table. Who else would they mean, he thinks as he watches Dimitri nod along to whatever the Professor is saying to him. He’s smiling, so it must be good. And he’s forgotten his food, so it must be interesting.

“He looks pretty princely to me,” Ashe says.

Annette leans over her lunch to peer down the table too. “I guess,” she says. She straightens abruptly. “We’ll just have to talk to him.”

Ashe drops his roll. “What? We talk to him all the time!”

“Not really,” Annette replies in a mutter.

Across the table and two seats down, Felix snorts.

“Hello Felix,” Mercedes says sweetly.

Felix shoots her a glare and gets to his feet, storming away.

“They must be close,” Mercedes says thoughtfully.

“Must be,” Annette agrees.

“Who?” Ashe says.

“Ashe.”

All three of them look back down the table. The Professor has stood and is waving now, their expression unchanging as they wait.

Ashe blinks, and then stumbles to his feet.

“Y-yes!”

The Professor sits as he approaches and gestures to the seat next to Dimitri. Ashe hesitates, and then sits, keeping his hands nervously flat on the table. “Professor,” he greets. And then, with a nod and a sideways glance, “Your Highness.”

“Hello Ashe,” Dimitri says.

“Ashe,” the Professor says, leaning back in their seat. They cross their arms over their chest. “Dimitri and I were discussing the mock battle.”

“Okay,” Ashe says.

The Professor tilts their head. Their hair shifts gently over their shoulders. “I want you to participate.”

Ashe stares. “Me?” he says.

“Yes.”

“You practice as much and as hard as anyone,” Dimitri says. Ashe looks at him, his nails dragging against the table.

“Dimitri has offered some useful insight into you and your classmates,” the Professor continues. Dimitri is still smiling, his attention unwavering as Ashe stares up at him. “This is my opportunity to get an early idea of how some of you work together. Will you participate?”

Ashe looks away, finally, his mouth dry. “I--yes, of course. If you think I can be useful. I’m not a proper archer, Professor. I mean, I do practice a lot. But I don’t know if I can--”

“You’ll do fine,” the Professor interrupts.

Ashe stares at them. “I...haven’t worked much with many of my classmates.”

The Professor tilts their head the other way. Ashe thinks he hears their neck creak and crack with the motion. “This will be your chance.”

Dimitri is a warm, quiet presence next to Ashe.

***

Ashe  _ does _ practice more than almost anyone. He tests his strength every chance he gets. His aim improves every day. He listens attentively to the Professor’s lectures.

But Ashe is also quiet. He prefers the library. He makes time to help out around the monastery, craving constantly the feeling of being useful, of being worth the time and resources being funnelled into what is primarily a martial education.

And some mornings, Dimitri is the only one to beat him to the training grounds.

***

( _ Once upon a time, _ whispers Christophe’s voice from the dark places of Ashe’s dreams.  _ There lived a brave knight, though he didn’t yet know what he was destined to be. _

_ That’s how destiny works, Ashe--it catches you by surprise. _

_ It finds you when you run from it _ .)

***

He’s an early sight. Ashe shouldn’t be surprised, but he is. His hands twitch. His attention flickers between between Dimitri himself and the training weapons along the back wall.

“Your Highness,” Ashe says, stumbling to a stop. It is only now that he realizes that he has run from his room to the grounds, a blend of determination and anxiety making him eager and quick. He brings himself up to his proper height, straightening his back and shoulders, but it’s a stuttered, belated gesture that has him hunched a second later. “I didn’t see you—”

“Ashe, please.” Dimitri waves a hand. He smiles. “We’re classmates. Friends, I hope. I think it would be appropriate if you were a little more relaxed with me, don’t you think?”

“Yes, of course,” Ashe agrees immediately. And then he grimaces and shakes his head. “Well, no. Not really. I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

Dimitri considers him. The edges of his smile fall away, only slightly, but Ashe sees it and feels suddenly ashamed. He glances away and then back and then all the way down to Dimitri’s boots.

“I won’t force you,” Dimitri says gently. “But I’ll find a way to convince you to relax a little around me.”

“I’m not sure you will, Your Highness,” Ashe mutters.

When he looks up again, Dimitri’s smile has changed: it’s wider, something boyish and closer to a grin now. It sparks a twitch of Ashe’s own lips.

“I suppose I’ll have to take that as a challenge,” Dimitri says.

“I suppose you will,” Ashe replies. “Your Highness.”

Dimitri turns away, his smile unchanging as he studies his grip on the training lance in his hands. “I’ll try not to get in your way,” he says.

They train around each other. Or, near one another? It’s hard to tell. Sometimes, Ashe forgets he’s there: he focuses on the tension in his muscles and the flight of his arrows. He studies his stance and stretches at the tightness that’s developing in his overworked shoulders. But most of the time he’s painfully aware of Dimitri: his steady breaths, the sound of his footsteps, his meditative hums as he considers first this and then that. Ashe catches himself straightening his back, adjusting his grip with more thought and care than he normally would. He tries to visualize himself standing straight, with his shoulders and hips squared, his form perfect and his arrows flying true. It’s a fantasy of himself that he doesn’t want to admit to; it’s a fantasy of himself that he’s desperate for Dimitri to see.

_ Thunk _ , cry the targets when Ashe’s arrows strike them.  _ Thunk _ , moan the dummies when Dimitri’s lance wails against them.

The early morning is becoming merely  _ morning _ when Sylvain saunters onto the training grounds, his jacket undone and his smile bright and crooked. He has a presence about him, even now as he makes his way around and amongst the early monastery bustle. Sylvain--Sylvain knows how to stand tall. Knows how to stand proud. He’s good at capturing attention. He smiles like he’s born to brighten every room he enters.

Ashe lowers his bow when he spots him. Dimitri carries on.

“Look at you two working hard,” Sylvain says, still smiling. He leans against a wall, casual and comfortable. “Getting ready for the mock battle?”

“Yes,” Ashe says automatically. He drums his fingers against his training bow. “Good morning Sylvain.”

Sylvain’s gaze slides and refocuses then, as if he’s spotting Ashe for the first time. Ashe presses his lips together and blinks back. The drumming of his fingers stop.

“Morning,” Sylvain replies, finally, and pushes away from the wall to stride toward Dimitri. Ashe watches him go, swiveling and, finally, breaking his form. Dimitri has stopped, his expression distant as he tests the strength left in the training lance. The dummy in front of him looks especially ragged, lined up with the rest, and it wobbles precariously when Sylvain gives it an experimental push.

“I think Dedue was looking for you,” Sylvain says, leaning away from the dummy and turning his smile on Dimitri.

“Thank you,” Dimitri replies. He looks up from the lance.

“Look at you, leaving a lance in one piece.”

“Sylvain.” It’s a tired warning. Dimitri sighs. He turns away. He turns the lance over in his hands. “I’m not finished yet.”

Sylvain hums. “I can wait, then.”

“ _ Sylvain _ .”

It’s an open sort of non-secret that there are four in the Blue Lions House who have known each other for most of their lives. Ashe has seen it in the way that Ingrid and Felix bicker, quiet and gentle even as they trade jabs. He’s seen it, too, in the way Dimitri shrinks a little when Ingrid or Sylvain call him by his title, and now he hears it in the exhausted twinge to his voice and in the kind, insistent way Sylvain tries to tempt him to breakfast.

Ashe is outside of it. He’s far away, with a developing ache in his arms that tell him to stretch. But he watches. He likes this other side of Dimitri, this familiar and boyish side to him that still carries the important threads of his princely role.

Sylvain is talking, still, filling the space between the two of them and pushing Ashe just a little further away. The air starts to feel huge and suffocating and Ashe knows he should look away, but then Dimitri sets the lance gently against the dummy and begins to unbuckle one of his perennial gauntlets.

Ashe turns away. He strides, with all the purpose he can muster in his gangly, still-too-small body, toward the targets and begins to collect his arrows. Sylvain’s voice is dull under the impatient roar in his ears, and sometimes he can hear Dimitri answer in soft sounds. He tugs the last of the arrows free from the target, clutches them all in one hand and clutches his training bow tighter still in the other, and turns back. He has every intention of returning to his practice, to his focus, but Dimitri’s sleeves are rolled up and his hands are bare.

Sylvain taps gently at Dimitri’s knuckles. Dimitri sighs with his shoulders more than his breath and raises his hands, palms up.

“A blister,” Dimitri says when Ashe’s ears start to work again. “That’s all. It’s fine.”

Sylvain shrugs. He pokes at Dimitri’s palms and laughs when Dimitri closes his fists and pulls away. “You should take care of those, you know. You only get the one set.”

Dimitri shakes his head. Ashe watches as he reaches for the training lance again, his long, pale fingers seeming otherworldly as they stretch with the movement and then curl around the lance proper. He’s too far away to see it, but Ashe imagines the twitch of muscle in Dimitri’s wrists as he moves, as he adjusts his grip. It must be a reflection of the shifts in his expression, Ashe thinks: the way his lips tilt as Sylvain laughs his way through a joke or a warning or--whatever it is that Sylvain is saying; the way Dimitri must adjust the scope of his attention much in the same way he adjusts his hold, his stance, that all-important grip—

Ashe realizes that he is staring only when he notices the glaring shine of Sylvain’s grin directed his way.

He grips his gathered arrows so tightly they almost snap.

Well.

They bend, a little. His hands strain.

And Dimitri turns to look at him.

“Goodbye,” Ashe says and takes off before he can see the mounting amusement spread over Sylvain’s features. He’s never moved so fast in his life, he thinks. His legs have never had to carry him so far and so quickly before.

His cheeks have never burned quite like this.

He’s in the dining hall, panting, when he realizes that he is still holding his training bow and collected arrows.

He curses.

“ _ Ashe _ ,” Mercedes scolds, coming to his side as if she’s materialized from thin, judgmental air. Annette trails behind her, hiding a giggle in her fist.

“Oh,” Ashe says. He takes in a shaky breath. “Sorry.”

Mercedes looks him up and down once. “What’s wrong?”

Wrong, Ashe thinks. He looks down at his pilfered supplies. His mouth twists. “I should take these back,” he says instead of answering properly.

“Nah,” Annette says with a wave of her hand. Her stifled laughter is bright in her smile. “No one will notice.”

Ashe doesn’t think that’s particularly true but he decides he wants it to be and lets his shoulders sag.

“Breakfast?” Annette leads the way and Mercedes wraps a gentle, guiding arm around his shoulders.

“Breakfast,” Ashe agrees, still breathless.

They steal a chair for his stolen training equipment and then Mercedes and Annette sandwich him in between them, piling his breakfast tray high and then stealing from his plate when Ashe is slow to eat. He knows that they are sharing concerned looks over and around his head, and he knows that Annette is frowning at the way he chews too long at his eggs and moves bacon mindlessly around his plate.

He knows all of this. But he is only half-present.

His cheeks are still hot and his thoughts are still back at the training ground, caught in the moment of--off—

Voyeurism, Ashe realizes with a hysterical whine at the back of his mind.

He squishes the thought down.

No, he decides.

But all he can think about are Dimitri’s hands.

“Seriously Ashe,” Annette says just as the hall begins to fill with the rest of the morning rush. “What’s bugging you? Is it the mock battle?”

“You work so hard,” Mercedes says thoughtfully. “I should try to be more like you, I think.”

“You’re fine,” Annette dismisses. She pokes Ashe’s shoulder once. “And so are  _ you _ . You’re going to be great!”

“Thanks,” Ashe mutters.

He blinks and he sees Dimitri peeling off his gauntlets, his expression serious and his cheeks flushed with exertion.

“We have  _ got _ to help you find a way to relax,” Annette sighs.

Yeah, Ashe thinks.

Yeah.

***

So Ashe develops a preoccupation.

Sometimes, in class, when his head is already bowed and his feet crossed at the ankles and Annette is muttering to herself next to him, Ashe lifts his gaze just so and peers at the strong, straight line of Dimitri’s shoulders, of his back. He considers what he can see of Dimitri’s elbows. He wonders about the way Dimitri rests his hands on the table, or the posture he takes when he delves into his note-taking. 

Sometimes, wandering about the monastery, Ashe catches sight of Dimitri and stops and waits. Dimitri, he learns through his observations, talks with his hands when he’s comfortable  _ or _ when he is upset. Otherwise, when he is tense or nervous or unfamiliar with someone, Dimitri keeps his hands at his sides, with a sort faux looseness. A kind of fake relaxation. No one holds their hands so still like that.

Sometimes, Ashe spies small moments of affection: Dimitri, touching Dedue’s arm when they lean together to share something quiet between them; Dimitri, shaking a training partner’s hand at the end of a sparring match; Dimitri, gathering flowers for the Professor when they wile away recreational hours in the greenhouse together.

And sometimes, Ashe thinks Dimitri notices his spying.

He’ll turn on his heel and look straight back at Ashe, his blue eyes blinking once, twice, three times. Ashe watches his fingers twitch. He thinks he sees Dimitri’s lips part, a greeting or a question or an admonishment on the tip of his tongue.

So Ashe runs away.

He runs away on his own, too, in a way. He never wants to admit it, not to anyone, not even to himself, but he spends the nights leading up to the mock battle staring up at his ceiling and clutching his blankets and struggling to remember to breathe. He closes his eyes and all he sees are DImitri’s hands.

He should never have seen them, not like that. Dimitri wouldn’t have wanted that, Dimitri wouldn’t want this—

He sleeps poorly, the night before the mock battle. He wakes, bleary-eyed, from a dream he only half-remembers and he lets out his frustration by screaming into his pillow until his throat is sore.

He assumes, then, that the mock battle is doomed. That  _ he _ is doomed, or that he’s doomed the honour of class, country, and future King. He joins the rest of the Lions at breakfast and he knows he’s pale and shaky.

“Stop,” Felix snaps at him. 

Ashe slams a shaking hand to the table to quell the twitching. The morning, excited din in the hall quiets for a moment. His cheeks flush. 

Felix, looking like he’s trapped next to Ashe, makes a noise that borders on  _ disgusted _ .

Yes, Ashe thinks. He is doomed. 

The morning journey to the field is noisy. All three classes are singing and jeering and it must mostly be a show of confidence, something to unsettle each other. Ashe wants to join in on this pre-battle merriment. He can visualize it: the camaraderie of it all, the budding friendships, the bonds that tie armies and battle brethren together. It’s the sort of thing he reads about in books, and the sort of thing that Christophe would remember with a boyish grin and glint to his eyes. 

But thinking about Christophe does nothing for Ashe’s nerves. He decides to stop.

He fails.

His exhaustion, nerves, and frustration ramp up, and up, and up. The class splinters: Annette waves goodbye to Ashe and Mercedes; Sylvain slaps Felix on the back once and earns a scowl; and then the Professor is leading the way to their starting position.

Ashe watches Felix take several experimental swings of his sword. He can hear Mercedes next to him, walking herself through her spell and saying thoughtful things that only sounds like gibberish to Ashe. He nods anyways. He watches Felix.

Felix takes a step forward. Swing. He steps back. Repeat.

Ashe’s hands are sweaty. He should have slept more. He should have eaten a better breakfast. He should have practiced more, or practiced different, or--maybe he shouldn’t have practiced at all? It’s difficult to get his thoughts in order.

“Ashe?” Mercedes says, nudging him gently. He tears his eyes off Felix and looks up at her tender smile.

He gapes.

Her smile fades a little.

Dimitri and Dedue break their quiet huddle and join them, a sudden tall almost-crowd gathered around Ashe. Felix catches on and ceases his swinging, but keeps his distance. 

“Ashe,” Dimitri says, concern making his mouth twist. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ashe replies.

Dimitri leans back. His grip shifts on his lance. Behind him, Dedue raises his eyebrows.

Ashe, suddenly self-conscious, stares at his feet. He swallows.

“Ashe.”

A gentle tap to his shoulder. He lifts his head, almost too fast so his neck aches with the movement, and comes face to face with the Professor. He blinks. They stare back at him, their expression unchanging. This is the first time Ashe realizes that they are the same height, or that there are pale freckles dotting the Professor’s cheeks. 

Byleth nods once, firmly, and then raises their hands and squishes Ashe’s cheeks between their palms.

Ashe makes a flattering  _ yuch _ sound. Behind the Professor, Dedue turns away, his earring dancing with the movement. Felix makes another sound (disgusted, Ashe thinks again).

“Focus,” the Professor says. “You will be fine.”

Ashe tries to nod but they are holding his face too tightly.

“Leave your distractions behind,” they continue. “You can revisit them later. Once we’ve won.”

“Okay,” Ashe says, air puffing out pathetically between their squished lips.

The Professor looks carefully into his eyes for a moment more and then, satisfied by something they see, they nod again and release him. “We are ready,” they announce to the others and whirl away with a flick of their cloak.

Ashe pokes his cheeks experimentally, frowning. Mercedes makes a soft sound, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Our Professor is an interesting person,” she decides, saying it to no one at all and all of them at once. And then she follows after the Professor, humming and straightening her quiver.

Felix hurries into step just behind her, casting a final curious look over his shoulder.

Focus, Ashe thinks. He tosses the word about his thoughts.

“Interesting is a word for them,” Dedue observes.

“Indeed,” Dimitri says. He looks away from the Professor and turns a small smile on Ashe. “Shall we, Ashe?”

Ashe stares at him for a moment. He’s pale, and tall, and more broad in his shoulders than Ashe realized. 

He nods and marches passed his Prince and Dedue. Focus, he tells himself.

Focus.

There’s a moment when he’s found his spot near the Professor and is watching the wind play in their hair and at the fabric of their cloak: what was he worried about? He tests the tension in his bow string and he takes several deep breaths and he thinks: it’s just a test. It’s just a game.

There’s a moment of relief, like something snapping inside of him and releasing an outpouring of warmth that settles so much of his anxieties. 

Everything passes.

Ashe falls into line with his peers and behind his Professor and joins the first of many battles.

***

Yes, everything passes. Ashe’s nerves feel like a distant, silly thing when the battle is done and Annette is wrapping him in a gleeful, celebratory hug when they meet again at the monastery. They eat and talk and review strategy together, and Ashe waits to shrink under the attention and praise that’s directed his way but he doesn’t; he stays upright and straight-backed, he smiles through the flush on his cheeks. He thinks he could do it again, if he had to.

He does not stare at Dimitri through the rest of the evening. He just thinks: focus.

This carries him through the rest of the week. His gaze drifts upwards during class and he catches himself tracing the line of Dimitri’s shoulders and he thinks: focus.

He stretches his sore limbs in the quiet of the training grounds and feels his attention start to shift toward Dimitri, with his soft breaths and his deliberate steps, and Ashe thinks: focus.

He pauses in the courtyard to watch Dimitri and the Professor as they walk, talking quietly and rapidly to each other, and he watches the way Dimitri tilts just slightly to meet them, his back curving rather than bending, and Ashe thinks: focus.

He squishes everything down and he thinks that this is how he knows that he will be successful at the Officers’ Academy. His Professor has taught him something valuable, some impenetrable: the steel focus of a mercenary, Ashe decides; the stalwart attention of a future knight.

He practices. He smiles. He reads. He befriends more of his classmates and he watches the muscle start to develop in his arms.

Once in a while, he dreams about Dimitri. 

The first time, Christophe wraps an arm around his shoulders and guides him away from Dimitri’s waving form and tells him stories of his own time at the Academy. “It’s not like a storybook,” Christophe says, his grin teasing and his eyes mismatched in the dream. “It’s better. Warmer. This is where you build the relationships that will define the rest of your life, Ashe!”

The second time, Ashe holds his bow and Dimitri’s cape flutters just out of sight, a distraction in the corner of his eye. The Professor clucks from their position at the front of the classroom, their feet propped up on the bed and their expression flat as always. “Focus, Ashe,” they say.

He wakes both mornings feeling determined. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and then he throws himself out of bed and goes to train.

They have their first mission at the end of this moon. And Ashe will be ready. He’s learned his lesson.

He sleeps well the night before and he thinks his preoccupation has passed.

***

( _ Once upon a time, _ whispers Christophe’s voice from the dark places of Ashe’s dreams.  _ There was a kingdom besieged by violence. _

_ It’s distant for the knight, now, but it seeps into everything. It stains every corner. It waits for you, Ashe, and you must be ready _ .)

***

Ashe’s is the first kill.

His arrow strikes true. The bandit falls with barely a sound, or maybe Ashe can’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. His lips part in shock as he lowers his bow, his hands steady though his skin seems to vibrate and tremble against his bones and muscles.

Felix lowers his sword. He comes out of a stance that is becoming familiar to Ashe--or, it had been, before. He turns back to Ashe and nods once, and then he is carrying on, following the Professor’s calm direction.

Ashe swallows.

Blood.

  
  
  
  


He doesn’t like to dwell on it. There are things he sees only when he doesn’t want to. The Professor’s pale freckles, so strange a companion to the warmth of their hands against his cheeks. Mercedes’s long bouts of prayer, her head bowed and her lips moving so quickly her smile seems to vanish into dust on sun beams. Blood on the ground.

His arrow is still perfectly good, he thinks as he stands over the body.

He leaves it and carries on.

  
  
  
  


_ No _ , he tells the Professor in another life.  _ No _ . He throws down his bow and he walks from the field of the mock battle.

  
  
  
  
  


“Ashe?”

He opens his eyes. The Cathedral is quiet. Empty, almost. The sunlight has vanished and only candlelight casts any warmth against the walls. Ashe realizes that he is cold, caught in remembering. Remembrance. He shivers and unclasps his hands and straightens.

The Professor is standing at the end of his pew. They have been keeping their distance this moon. They, like everyone, look at him strangely.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says, louder than he intended. His voice echoes strangely around the empty Cathedral. “The night before the mock battle, I mean. I was nervous and distracted.” He looks down at his hands, pressed against his knees now.

“Okay,” the Professor says after a moment. They breathe in and out. “Are you sleeping now?”

Off and on. “Yes,” Ashe mumbles.

The Professor doesn’t reply. Ashe, uncomfortable, shifts in his seat. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here. He hasn’t found the words or the strength to pray yet, not properly. He lifts his hands from his knees and studies the shape of his fingers, the developing callouses on his skin. He flexes his hands and then curls his fingers into loose fists and tucks them tight against his stomach. He starts to curve again, bend.

“Ashe,” the Professor says again. “You don’t have to come with us.”

“I will,” Ashe says. “I will be there.”

“Alright.”

Time weaves in and out of itself. When he blinks, he sees Christophe’s smile as he turns away, his arm raised in a wave. It must be Ashe’s last memory of him, something that should feel closer than it does. He presses his fists tighter against himself and closes his eyes again. He hears the Professor’s steps against the stone floor a moment later, retreating as they do.

Their first mission went well. Smoothly. No real, frightening injuries to speak of, save what they inflicted on the bandits they had been sent to rout. There had been no laughter when they returned to the monastery and Ashe had thought: this is what I came to learn. It had been a terrible weight. It had made him sag in ways he didn’t understand, not yet.

But he will focus, he had decided. He will—

But they have another mission this moon. Lonato waits. 

***

He is the first in the classroom the following morning. There’s an aching emptiness to his stomach that makes him think he must be hungry, but he doesn’t like to join the others for breakfast, not now when so many whispers and eyes are directed his way. He doesn’t know how word got out about his relationship to the—

He can’t think it. He takes his seat and flips through a book on magic that Annette had finished the previous day. It’s mostly nonsense to him. He likes the diagrams, however. The lines that are easy to follow with his eye, that make him feel like he’s doing something, at least; learning something, at least.

The door squeaks against the ground as it is opened again. Ashe pauses, his finger stuck to the page and lifts his head to glance back.

Seeing Dimitri makes him feel sick. There’s a combination of guilt and frustration that twists and morphs into something unpleasant and uncertain in his gut. He looks away.

There’s a pause and then the sound of Dimitri’s steps as he crosses the room and comes to stand next to Ashe’s table. Ashe counts to ten and then looks up again, his hands sliding from the table to settle on his lap.

“Good morning Your Highness,” he says.

Dimitri considers him for a moment. A smile sparks to life on his lips and then disappears. “Good morning Ashe,” he says. “Am I disturbing you?”

“No,” Ashe replies. He doesn’t know if he’s lying or not.

Dimitri nods. He tucks his hands behind his back and looks away, and then back. Ashe thinks suddenly that it’s awkward like this, with his Prince looking down at him and his own tired gaze directed all that distance up. He struggles with what to do next, and realizes a moment later that Dimitri seems to be doing the same.

They haven’t spoken much, not in--days, perhaps weeks. But, Ashe supposes, they didn’t speak much  _ before _ either (before blood and shaking hands and focus; before the whispering of Lonato’s name in the monastery corridors). Ashe knows his voice, all the same, just as they know his silhouette and his breathing during his morning training sessions. They run in concurrent circles, overlapping at the same time as never touching. Ashe supposes that this is the miracle of serving a Prince who will, one day, be a King: Ashe’s devotion is here, in the unspoken words that make up a citizen’s service to the ground, and Dimitri’s is in never falling low enough to see it.

Ashe’s hands twitch. He presses his palms to his stomach.

“I was hoping to speak with you,” Dimitri says. “About…” He trails off.

“Oh,” Ashe says.

“Yes.” Dimitri rocks briefly on his feet and then takes a half-step back, as if wanting to give Ashe breathing space, fleeing space. 

Ashe swallows. “I don’t think there’s much to say, Your Highness,” he says, his tongue heavy and dry in his mouth. He says it, but he knows that it is a lie. There’s so much, building up at the base of his throat, but it’s all closer to a scream than words, sentences, meaning. He doesn’t know what he could say to Dimitri, who will be King, and against whom Ashe’s own father must be inflicting a grave violence.

Violence.

Ashe finds that his dreams are never the same, except that they are. There is a tone to them. A weight. He dreamed, once, of his hands around Ignatz’s throat. He dreamed, once, of the bandit who had fallen as his first kill leaping to his feet and congratulating Ashe on the excellent shot. Excellence takes on a different term, now. Success.

Excellent violence.

Ashe licks his lips and tries to look away, but Dimitri has him locked and trapped like this, staring up and waiting for something. Anything.

Goddess, but he wants to run. He wants to flee back to the safety of the Cathedral and bow his head over his knees and contemplate, if not pray. Wait, if not flee.

But Dimitri tilts his head like he’s shaking words loose from his ears. He grimaces. “Forgive me,” he says. “But I don’t think that’s true.”

Ashe presses his lips together. His fingers curl against his abdomen and clutch at his jacket fabric. “He didn’t tell me anything, Your Highness,” he says. His voice comes out steady, surprising him. There’s a confidence he doesn’t feel resonating in the words. It’s a wall, he realizes. It’s something he’s learned from Lonato himself and is modelling now: a combination of grief and rejection; the importance of carving out a space for and within himself to confront his own feelings before the grand reach of the world’s authorities can reach in and feel about the edges of those feelings for clues to the truth.

The Truth.

_ He didn’t tell me anything _ , Lonato says in a clouded memory. Ashe remembers Lonato’s hand on his shoulder. He remembers his own shrieking grief when he realizes that Christophe, too, is lost to him--is lost to them both.

Grief feels a lot like panic. Fear feels a lot like--choking.

He’s two moons younger and screaming into a pillow, but he’s here, now, looking up at Dimitri and waiting for the proverbial axe to fall.

But-- _ but _ , and it’s Dimitri again--but Dimitri pulls his hands from behind his back and raises them in a palm-forward, placating gesture. “No, Ashe,” he says. “You misunderstand.”

Ashe frowns. He releases his jacket front with a snap of his wrists. Misunderstand--what is there to misunderstand.

( _ Everything _ , whispers Christophe’s distant voice.)

Ashe stands, pushing himself to his feet with his hands against the table. He shakes his head and steps over his bench, pulling away. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. He catches himself and looks back, his arms hanging deliberately loose at his sides. “Your Highness.”

Dimitri’s hands drop, too. He looks distantly resigned as he blinks. “I understand,” he replies. “But when you are ready, Ashe, I want you to know--and, if you can tell him before I can, I want Lord Lonato to know--that I would like to listen.”

“Listen,” Ashe echoes.

“Yes,” Dimitri continues, firmly. “There is a lot I want to do, when I am able. And next year I--” He breaks off, frustration turning his words in a soft huff. He pushes a hand through his hair, strands catching on his gauntlets before they fall gently against his forehead.

Oh, Ashe thinks. 

“Next year I will be King,” Dimitri says finally, looking back at Ashe like he’s relieved that Ashe is still waiting. “And I would like to listen.”

Ashe breathes: in, and then out; in, and then—

“He’s not a traitor,” Ashe blurts. He’s taking a step forward before he can stop himself. “I don’t know why he’s doing this, not really, but if I could talk to him--”

“Perhaps we both could,” Dimitri says. There’s something like excitement in his voice. Hope, maybe. It strengthens the sentences that had been broken a moment before.

Ashe’s shoulders sag. He isn’t relieved, not exactly, but he feels like he could be, eventually. He could breathe, some day soon.

Focus.

The world is suddenly a place he can see again, coming into bright focus around Dimitri standing just ahead of him. Violence can be a moment, he realizes. Violence can be a step on a path to something greater, something more peaceful. Perhaps that is nobility, or grace, or chivalry.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Ashe says. He means it. He means most things he says, but this is earnest and honest and a reflection of the hope he thinks he’s heard in Dimitri’s voice. “I want to believe that he just needs to be heard. And if you could intervene with the Church…” He trails off, catching himself.

Dimitri shakes his head. “I want to do my best,” he tells Ashe. He spreads his hands between them, his shoulders rising in a shrug. “I’m in a difficult spot, still. I am...only me, still.”

Only me. Like he isn’t the shining promise of the Kingdom’s future, Ashe’s generation’s great hope.

Ashe smiles. Dimitri returns it again.

“Until then,” the Prince continues. “If there’s something I can do to help you, Ashe. Or...anything. If there is anything I could do for you, please let me know.”

Ashe shakes his head. “I think you’re going to be doing enough, Your Highness.”

Dimitri’s small smile turns wry. “I doubt that,” he says flatly.

Ashe wonders at that for just a moment and then his thoughts are interrupted by a flash of nervous lightning.

“Actually,” he says and he takes the remaining step closer. “There is something--it’s a bit odd, actually, so I’m kind of already sorry to ask it—”

“Don’t be,” Dimitri says, holding up a hand to dismiss the would-be apology. “Please. Tell me.”

And Ashe’s eyes drop from the Prince’s face to his hand.

“Ashe?” Dimitri says, waiting. He leans slightly forward, straining to hear words that Ashe hasn’t said.

His tongue is a dead thing in his mouth now, beyond heavy, beyond heaving. He could swallow it down and it would fill his stomach for days on end. His voice would shatter down his throat and disappear forever. He would—

“Ashe?” Dimitri says again, touching Ashe’s shoulder gently. He pulls back when Ashe starts at the touch, his wide eyes finding the Prince’s again.

He can’t bear the words themselves. He finds another path forward.

“I’m about to be very forward,” Ashe blurts. He pauses. His hands are sweaty at his sides. His palms sticky, fingers trembling. He swallows. “Your Highness.”

Dimitri stares at him. “I--well, I suppose that’s good, actually.” He peers a little closer at Ashe, his shoulders rising slightly. “Perhaps? Ashe--”

Ashe, feeling dizzy and frustrated and amused all at once, seizes Dimitri’s right arm. He has a grand vision: the gauntlet will slide off with ease, with grace, perhaps with a clatter and something of a gasp from the Prince himself; and Ashe, in turn, will meet Dimitri’s steady, cool gaze with a triumphant smile and an announcement—

There are buckles, however. Ashe picks at them with his free hand. His blush rises, and rises, and rises, until he thinks he’s red up to his hairline.

“Oh dear,” he mutters at Dimitri’s hand.

Dimitri’s gauntleted fingers twitch. He clears his throat. He might be laughing, a little. Ashe picks a little harder at the buckles and gets one free.

“I see,” Dimitri says. With gravity.

“Oh dear,” Ashe says again.

“I can--”

“Oh. No.  _ No—” _

Dimitri undoes the buckles with practiced ease. Ashe pulls his hands away, raising them abruptly and awkwardly in the air as if he has been caught pocketing goods from the kitchens. He wants to run, both away and to chase away the dizzy spell that seems to be settling over his thoughts like a proper, dense fog. But he stays where he is, rooted and uncomfortable and overheated, and he watches Dimitri’s pale fingers curl loosely in and toward his palm. The gesture is shy, and it makes Ashe aware of the mild obscenity of the moment: the uncovering, the undressing, the unveiling, of Dimitri’s hand.

He looks up.

Dimitri clears his throat again and there isn’t a hint of a laugh to be heard. The candlelight casts dancing shadows over his cheeks but Ashe can see, still, a matching flush on the prince’s face. His lips twitch.

“Well,” Dimitri says. His bare hand seems to hang between them. “Is...that what you wanted?”

Ashe nods slowly. His hands drop back to his sides, clenched into nervous fists. “Yes,” he says. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

Dimitri glances away. “I have a name, you know,” he says.

“I do know,” Ashe replies. He doesn’t mean to sound so eager or earnest; it’s horrible to hear himself.

The urge to run returns.

Dimitri’s attention returns, too. His eyes are startlingly blue: so pale, so clear. Ashe supposes the prince’s eyes should remind him of ice but all he can think of is rain.

“You have beautiful hands,” Ashe says finally. He blinks. He shakes himself and tries again: “I think you have beautiful hands, Your Highness. I mean, they  _ are _ beautiful, but also to me--that is, I find your hands to be…” Ashe trails off with a grimace.

“Oh,” Dimitri says.

Yes, rain. Summer storms and skies all at once.

“...beautiful,” Ashe finishes.

“Oh,” Dimitri says again.

It’s hard to look away. It’s harder, still, to remember to breathe, and to keep  _ breathing _ as a notion, as a concept, as a life-giving necessity, top of mind when all Ashe can suddenly think of is the shape of Dimitri’s eyes and the curve of his lips and that shy, beautiful gesture of his fingers curling in, in, in.

“Ashe,” Dimitri says. “I would like it very much if you called me by my name.”

Ashe’s renewed fluster jerks him back into his body, makes him suck in a nervous, almost irritated breath that shakes its way through him. “Your Highness--”

But Dimitri’s smile stops him. Stops everything. Ashe isn’t aware of the distance between them until Dimitri has stepped into it, cautious and slow, his smile taking on a nervous softness to it that makes the corners of his mouth seem sharp and deep at once. “I think--” he breaks off.

“Yes,” Ashe replies, more firmly than seems appropriate for the moment and the way it weighs heavily against his chest, makes him tilt his head back so he can keep watching Dimitri, like if he blinks everything will shatter and there will be—

Nothing. 

“Yes,” Dimitri agrees, softer. “There’s something strange about this, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Ashe says again. And then licks his lips. “I think. Probably.”

They stare at each other. Ashe’s chest grows tighter, tighter, tighter, winding warmth crowding around his heart until it’s hammering so hard he can feel it against every inch of his skin. Dimitri’s touch, when it comes, feels inevitable.

Inevitable. It’s there in the soft warmth of his fingers, in the way it calms the tremors under Ashe’s cheek until something closer to calm begins to radiate out from the contact. There’s inevitability in the quiet hesitancy of it, and inevitability in the way neither of them blink, and inevitability in the way Ashe feels his hands unclench at his sides, his fingers stretching like they are waiting, already, to catch something.

_ There’s something strange about this _ , Dimitri had said.

Yes, Ashe had replied. And yes, he thinks now. Strangeness abounds, but it is warm, enveloping, and honest.

And that when he knew he was in love with the prince.

His shoulders relax. His lips part. And he is ready when Dimitri speaks again, his voice crashing into Ashe as if launched from a great distance.

“Ashe,” he says, his voice clear like starlight, like new ice, like fresh snow— “Call me by my name. Please. It--”

“I’ll try,” Ashe interrupts. “Dimitri. I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”

There is a moment, a breath, where they both seem startled by the certainty in Ashe’s voice, and then Dimitri’s smile changes again, and it is so much like that strange unveiling of his hand, the surprise of his bare skin, the exposure of it all, that Ashe forgets to breathe again.

And maybe won’t ever need to again.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, that lovely, naked smile sending ripples of something new through his voice.

He kisses Ashe gently, hesitantly. A barely-there touch of their lips, a ghost of a gesture, but Ashe is ready for this, too, already rising up on his toes, his hands catching at Dimitri’s shoulders. There’s a clattering, muffled sound (he’s dropped his gauntlet, Ashe thinks; it’s a dizzying new realization), and then he feels Dimitri’s hand at the small of his back, pulling him closer.

The kiss becomes something else. Ashe has read the word a thousand times in almost as many stories: it deepens, becomes heavy and warm, and he sinks into it, sags against Dimitri and is caught with his eyes fluttering shut and all that radiating warmth colliding with the heated panic of before to make something else, something bright and full and—

Dimitri, Ashe thinks as his fingers curl into his jacket. Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri—

“Stop.”

They break apart but don’t let go, holding on to each other so they’re so close still that there doesn’t seem to be enough air to share between them. Ashe sees his own surprise and confusion echoed in Dimitri’s expression, but he sees, too, Dimitri’s wet, parted lips and his wide, bright eyes, and it makes him want to drag Dimitri back down, all the way down, until they can forget again where they are.

But Dimitri tears his gaze away and leaves Ashe suddenly cold. He swallows and turns, too, to see Felix’s dark expression bearing down on them both, even from the other end of the classroom.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, his voice flat.

Felix’s scowl deepens, and then his eyes slide to Ashe.

Ashe’s hands fall from Dimitri’s shoulders. It’s the nail in the proverbial coffin: Dimitri’s arms pull back, and then Dimitri himself is taking a long stretch of a step away from Ashe.

Ashe crosses his arms, uncertain and ashamed.

“You should go,” Felix says.

“Felix,” Dimitri says again, his tone shifting.

Felix jerks his head towards the door. “Go.”

The command makes Ashe’s spine rigid. He presses his arms tighter against himself but straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin. Felix’s attention is unbreaking, his expression unchanging.

Ashe leaves. He takes slow steps from the room, beyond Felix, and into the fresh air of the courtyard beyond. It is only then that he feels, truly feels, the flushed heat of his cheeks and the tension in his arms.

He whirls back in time to watch Felix stalk closer to Dimitri, and Dimitri’s tired attention as he approaches. Ashe breathes out through his nose.

Dimitri looks up, spots Ashe, and his shoulders drop.

Ashe runs.

***

(Yes. The beginning sets a tone.)

  
  



End file.
